Family firm founders: BO jobs on the line
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by Juliet Parish • West Yorkshire-based haulier Sanmar Container Services collapsed last week, three months after four of its former directors set up their own container business.
The new business, operating as Silver Birch Container Services in Newmillerdam, plans to recruit around 60 of the 130 drivers facing redundancy from Sanmar.
The directors of SBCS are Lisa Jones, Dean, Scott and Kelly Moss—the children of Sanmar's owners. They say they had planned to concentrate on container storage and handling, and only decided to diversify into haulage when their parents' 18-year-old business was put into administrative receivership on Friday 11 February. SBCS is bidding for Sanmar's former business, according to shipping agent UK Trident. It has not decided whether to give SBCS business from Singapore shipping line Neptune Orient Lines.
SBCS was granted a standard national licence for 30 trucks and 60 trailers last December to keep its options open, says managing director Dean Moss. He hopes to acquire about 60 trucks from accountancy firm, Coopers & Lybrand at Leeds.
Administrative receiver Glen Fletcher says it is too early to say how many of Sanmar's 120 trucks and 200 trailers will be for sale, because many are on a lease arrangement. Humberside-based Mercedes-Benz dealer H&L Group says it is owed at least £100,000 for trucks contracted to Samar.
Sanmar owns two sites at Normanton which its director Martyn Moss has been trying to sell for the past three months, to clear the company's debt. He blames the failure to sell these sites and last year's increase in truck insurance premiums for Sanmar's troubles: last year it broke even on a turnover of £9.3m.
To help sell the Nonnanton properties Sanmar has been renting part of SBCS's Newmillerdam site for the past three months. But a local authority refused to lift building restrictions on the Normanton land, which has made it difficult to sell. Finally Sanmar's bank, Natwest, was unable to wait any longer for cash from the sale and withdrew its overdraft facility.